Nadine Gordimer attacks ANC Secrecy Bill

Nobel Prize winning author warns that the "ANC is taking South Africa
back to the suppression of the free expression of apartheid".

Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer has attacked the ANC Secrecy Bill

10:16AM GMT 21 Nov 2011

Nobel literature prize winner Nadine Gordimer warned today that a new secrecy bill will return South Africa to apartheid-era limits on free speech.

The ruling African National Congress is set to push the Protection of State Information Bill through parliament tomorrow, amid an outcry that it will muzzle whistleblowers and journalists investigating state wrongdoing.

Gordimer said: The "ANC is taking South Africa back to the suppression of the free expression of apartheid."

Her intervention is hugely significant. Gordimer was a close friend of Nelson Mandela (he read her novel Burger's Daughter in jail in Robben Island and asked her to visit as soon as he came out) and she helped lead the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa.

The former UN goodwill ambassador, speaking at an 88th birthday celebration, warned that the bill went "totally against all ideas of freedom."

She added: "People have fought and died to gain the opportunity for a better life, which is ruined and dirtied by corruption. The corrupt practices and nepotism that they allow themselves is exposed if we have freedom of expression."

The ANC is expected to use its majority to approve the bill, after which it will pass to a lower house in parliament before going to President Jacob Zuma to sign.

The legislation, which replaces an apartheid-era law, would punish anyone holding or disclosing classified material with jail terms of up to 25 years.

Opponents have slammed the bill's tough penalties as draconian and want stronger safeguards for whistleblowers and a public interest defence that would argue exposure of classified information is in society's best interest.

Several pickets were set to take place today, with the National Press Club also calling for black clothing, ribbons or armbands to be worn tomorrow to show opposition to the bill.